


Queen of Peace

by preraphhobbit



Series: Queen of Peace/King of Disaster [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Cunnilingus, F/M, Graphic Description, I'm Going to Hell, Mentions of Rape, Multi, Other, Rough Kissing, Rough Sex, Slow Burn, Stannis Lives!, but i will mess with show canon as much as i wish, but i'll go down kicking and screaming, don't judge me for writing this fic because you're reading it so we're both snatched, following the show timeline inasmuch as winterfell is stark again and ramsay is dead, jon snow busts multiple nuts, jon snow is targaryen, lots of show spoilers, mentions of past character deaths, sansa stark needs some decent men in her life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-07-16 17:49:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7277863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/preraphhobbit/pseuds/preraphhobbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>how sansa stark learns to smile again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Love is No Good

**Author's Note:**

> in which sansa stark remembers what home is like and muses on different kinds of snow. takes place in s6 ep9, between retaking winterfell and the death of ramsay

How strange it was to be back in these old halls. They had made a fire in the great hearth of the old feast hall, and before even cleaning the blood from his cheeks Jon had pulled down the flesh-pink Bolton banners from where they had hung, between the windows and over the mantle, and throw them into the burning maw of the fire. The flames had eaten the tasseled silk greedily, and in half an hours' time the flayed man had, at least in effigy, been turned to ash.

Ser Davos had pulled up oak chairs around the fireplace, dusted ash from the hob, and then politely excused himself. Sansa liked Ser Davos: his gentle manners and quiet stubbornness reminded her of the northerners from her father's court. Umbers, Manderlys, Mormonts, Karstarks. The hall would smell of wood smoke, roasting meat, malt beer, wet dogs, and the salted skin of men who worked for their holdings; and, if her mother was near, the smell of rose oil she combed through her hair. The long tables arrayed like the spokes of a wheel below the platform where her father sat with Robb and Catelyn, the ones below where she herself would sit with Arya- who could never sit still- and Jeyne Poole; and Jon and Bran and Rickon nearby, near enough to reach out and touch if she wanted to. 

Once Arya swapped her glass of currant punch for currant wine and she was very nearly drunk. She remembered Catelyn stroking her aching head as she tried sleep, and the sound of her gentle laughter when Eddard Stark came to see why she had not yet gone to bed. "She has had her first drink of wine, poor girl," she could hear her mother saying. "She is too young for such a thing."

When Jon brings her a glazed tankard brimming with frothed malt beer, she accepts with without question, nodding her thanks before lifting it to her lips. The beer is bitter on the tongue like burnt bread and the pith of lemons. Jon, sitting in the chair opposite, takes a long draught and sets the tankard on the flags. He is restless, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. He has washed the grime of battle from his face, but not well; at the neck of his surtout dried blood flakes with ever turn of his head, his fingernails are torn ragged, his black curls twisted back into a tail but still unbrushed and still caked with mud. He glares into the fire. Neither of them speak. It is so cold here now. Not even the fire, roaring in the blackened stones, seems to give off any warmth. The cold crouches under the empty tables and lurks in the dark corners; it is Ramsay Bolton's legacy.

At last, when the silence has grown uncomfortable, and no-one has come in to relieve them of the duty of conversation, she says, "Thank you."

She has no idea why she has said this; it slipped out of without her thinking, as though hovering on the end of her tongue and waiting for release. He looks at her sharply. The light of the fire throws shadows on the planes of his face, making him look leaner and more savage than usual. Although are they not both leaner, and more savage? Jon Snow had once had the temper of harvest-time, balmy and gentle. What she saw in his eyes when he beat Ramsay Bolton in the yard of Winterfell was pure winter- as cold and as relentless as the old tales promised. 

Perhaps she should have been frightened, but she was not. Winter was nothing compared to what people inflicted on people. When she looked at Jon now, meeting his dark eyes, there was nothing cold or terrifying in them. Only a hollowness, an exhaustion. She knew she looked the same.

"For what?" 

"For this. For giving me...for giving us back our home."

He looks away from her, scratches his bearded jaw. "We'd have been slaughtered if not for Lord Baelish, and you have yourself to thank for that. Else every Mormont and wildling would be fodder for Ramsay's hounds, and you..."

He falters. He has never spoken of what happened to her under this roof, with Ramsay. It is as though there is something in her eyes or in her faces that tells him, and there is no need to pry out sordid details with words. Something in the way she holds herself, the way a breath of air across her shoulder or her neck can remind him of Ramsay Bolton's hands and makes her heart race. Once the smell of a wet dog, like that which clung to his leathers when he would come to the bed chamber after a hunt, left her with leaking eyes and trembling hands. 

"Where is Lord Bolton now?" she asks, trying to keep her voice light.

"We've locked him in the stable. Near the kennels."

Still here. Still alive. She swallows but her mouth is dry.

"He is roped to a chair and he is under guard." He smiles briefly. "Tormund was the first to volunteer. You do not have to be afraid, Sansa." 

How does he know? "I'm not afraid." She says it with more conviction than she feels. "But you don't-"

"I don't know Lord Bolton like you do. I know this. But it's over. Finished. House Bolton is all but dead. There is nothing to be afraid of- from Ramsay Bolton, at least."

"He was once a Snow."

"I know."

She has no word to describe the feeling of knowing that two northern bastards should be so different. But doesn't snow come in so many different forms? There was summer snow like the ones she experienced as a child, when the sky was still blue and the snow was soft as sugar on the ground, melting in her palms and shivering on her eyelashes until her breath made it disappear. So too was there snow like the snow of Old Nan's stories- snow that hardened into ice and built the Wall where Jon had once served, snow that rose in drifts to the eaves of the house, that made a frozen wasteland where spiders and dead things crawled in the dark. Not all snow was kind.

"Ser Davos tells me Lord Stannis offered you your legitimacy," she says lightly, realizing too late the tenderness of such a subject. Jon only shrugs, appearing unmoved.

"He did. But I had my vows to think of, and...well, I am Ned Stark's bastard, after all. And not his son. I have a name to uphold."

When she looks at him, she realizes he is grinning. When was the last time she saw someone grin like, without malice, a proper grin of pure mirth. She presses her hand to her mouth. She is smiling under her palm. 

He is still smiling when hers fades and she says, "If you had accepted then you would the Lord of Winterfell. You would have taken my brother's place and the north would be yours."

"I don't want the north." The smile disappears at last and he looks at her. "I never wanted the north. I wanted to mean something, to make a hero of myself. I don't know. I was a boy and I was foolish. And I've seen what happens to those who lead."

She has heard rumours of what happened to Jon Snow at Castle Black, but he has never spoken of it. She supposes it was his own sort of torture. She knows only that he is not the Lord Commander any longer.

"I've seen what people do to kind leaders, and what I said before the battle still holds true. I will do whatever I can to protect you, Sansa. I don't want the north, or titles, or a holding, or anything of that sort. I want my family."


	2. Love is No Good (Continued)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which sansa uncovers something she did not expect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [staring eye emoji]

When their beer is finished, she rises. "It's getting late. And the day has been long."

"Aye, it has." He collects their tankards and places them on a table, for someone else to deal with. "Have you a bed made up?"

"Yes. I took one upstairs, without windows. It felt comfortable. And you?" The truth is she does worry over him, the way a sister worries over a brother who will not look after himself. He hasn't had his wounds attended to, and she cannot help but notice how swollen his hands are. Were she not afraid what she would find, she would find a salve for him, something to sooth his weary limbs.

"I suppose I shall find Ser Davos and help him. That is what a leader does."

"I see." 

They walk down the length of the hall side by side. It is so cold their breath forms clouds in the air; the fire has done nothing to warm the room. 

"Was it always so cold, do you think?" she asks.

"No. Winter is coming."

Her house words. Their house words, for she knows Jon is a Stark even if he did not accept Lord Stannis' offer of legitimacy. He is as much a Stark as I am, if not more. He looks   
just like Ned Stark must have in his youth, and she knows she looks like her lady mother. Time is a circle that folds in on itself.

She stops at the table where her lord father used to sit, where he held court in the north. Jon stops, turns to look at her.

"It's strange, isn't it?" he asks, and she suddenly feels like weeping- which is a foolish thing, she has not wept in so long- because he knows how she feels although she speaks so little. For it is strange to be here in the carcass of a place that was once full of light and love and warmth.

"Yes." She puts her hand, palm down, against the table. Smooth and cold. "I remember when Robb was finally old enough to sit there with father. He was so happy."

"Aye. And Theon and I would sit below doing faces and try to make him laugh in front of the whole north." He is smiling; she is not. "And I remember you too," he goes on, "in your first grown-up dress, and you were as proud as Robb."

"It was the night before you went to the Wall. And Arya got mashed turnips all down my gown." What I wouldn't give to see Arya again- though she is probably dead now. 

"You were so angry."

"What a little fool I was. Getting so upset over such trivial things."

"You were young, Sansa. We all were."

"Not anymore."

She can hear the bitterness in her voice, so strong it rings through the empty hall, and Jon moves to stand next to her and grips her arm.

"I am sorry," he says to her.

"For what?"

"For what happened to you."

Something inside of her cracks and resonates, like a struck bell, although she remains still and does not meet his gaze. 

"We have both suffered. And we will suffer still."

When she looks at him, finally, something in his face, some veiled emotion behind those northerner's eyes that give nothing but would take your very heart out if you let them, that makes her left her hand and touch his face. The long scar, cutting from his temple to his jaw, the reminder of some battle she has yet to know. It is still raw red, but he does not flinch: it isn't new. When she draws him down to her, to kiss him, he doesn't flinch then either, instead yielding his mouth to hers as though he knew what she was thinking, and wanted it.

She has wanted him.

She cups her hands around the back of his neck to pull him nearer, his own hands were in her hair, loosening her braids, running his thumbs over her cheekbones and learning the curve of her neck. He tastes of beer and it fills her mouth, and he smells of blood and smoke and it fills her nose. She's never wanted anyone the way she wants him- not a small desire for a chaste kiss or a romantic desire for a good husband, but something deeper, carnal. Animal longing, although she's never lain with a man properly. Only Ramsay, who took and took and took. And now she wants to take, and Jon Snow seems more than willing to give.

His hands are groping for her skirt, for the backs of her thighs, and he lifts and sets her roughly on the edge of the table, so they are at eye level, and he can find his way through the heavy folds of her skirt to her stockinged knees, her bare thighs, the small clothe at her middle. His touch is growing fervent, the table is cold against her but his hands are hot on her skin, he is hot and burning everywhere. She fumbles uselessly with the knotted ties of his surtout. Her mouth travels from his mouth to his jaw, scraping against the soft beard scraped on his cheeks, tasting blood, before closing suddenly on the soft skin of his neck, not quite where it meets his shoulder.

The hiss of pain he makes gives her no end of pleasure, a coiling warmth between her legs. He repays her back scratching the inside of her thigh to make her gasp, before pushing her down by her shoulder so she is laying on her back, folding his arm across her belly to make her stay there while his free hand works her small clothes down her legs and pushes her legs apart. She is gasping, tense as a coiled spring, warmth in her belly. He spreads her apart with his hand, the rough tips of his fingers seeking out the hard nub hidden in her folds, before his black-haired head disappears between her legs and he kisses her there.

It's as though she's been plunged from a cold sea into a hot bath, the way her body twitches, every muscle centered on the spot of moist warmth he has pressed against her cunt. His beard moves against the very tops of her inner thighs as he opens his mouth to her, as though trying to take a bite of a peach, and when his tongue presses against the whole of her slit she cannot repress the sharp gasp, nearly a cry, that wrenches from her spasming body.

He works her with his tongue gods gods gods please don't stop please don't stop please he tastes her and sucks her and pushes himself into her while his fingers toy with her nub please don't stop please Jon Snow you bastard please he is kneeling between her legs and shamelessly eating her wet cunt as though he were born to it and maybe he was don't stop he pushes her knees further apart to spread her, his pace is faster and less rhythmic as though he is mounting to release too please please and suddenly the heat in her belly bursts and spreads like dragonfire through all her limbs and she is crying out, and then his tongue is gone and he is kissing her mouth to keep her quiet.   
She can taste herself on his mouth and his beard is wet. And she can feel the insistence of his arousal against her, between her legs, and she wants him then. She asks, says, "please" and cannot manage anything else. But he knows, his hands are fumbling with his breeches. When his erection springs free, a pale cock rising from a thatch of curling dark hair, she wraps her legs around his waist and brings him to her.

The moment he pushes inside of her is surprisingly painful. With Ramsay it was painful too, but that was a constant pain, a grating pain like being stabbed relentlessly. With Jon it is sharp and acute and lasts an instant; then he is seated deep inside of her, guided by the slick warmth of her arousal, and it feels so good and right she could weep if not for the pleasure of it. It feels like trying key after key only, after a long time, to find the one that fits a stubborn lock, and now she is open and ready and waiting. For he does fit her, perfectly, and when he bares her breasts and covers her body with his own, to suck her peaked nipple into his mouth, the contours of his body and the way he moves against her is perfect. As though they were made to fit together.

He grunts around her breast, a low growl deep in his throat, when he thrusts into her. Slowly at first, so as not to hurt her she supposes, but she wants all of him, now, and she reaches up under his shirt to find the naked skin of his back, encounters rough scars no bigger than a finger, only to rake him with her nails so that he gasps and pushes into her harder. His teeth close on her nipple and she cries out, then furls like a fern towards him and breathes "bastard" into his ear.

He swears, a sharp sound. Her chest is flushed, her cheeks too, her breasts tipped with pink. When he pulls out of her she almost shouts at the lost sensation. But then he is moving her, roughly, putting her onto her belly so that her arse is against his hips, and his cock finds her slit from behind and he pushes into her again and he is bent over her so that his mouth is near her ear and he can whisper to her, and his hands are around her waist and across her chest so he can hold her against him and cup her breasts in his hands. He pounds into her relentlessly, his breath hot on his neck, every touch of him inside her wrenching a sharp cry from her mouth that he muffles with the palm of his hand. She comes against him, once and then again, biting at the hand on her mouth but still he still not sated, still not, until again she cries "bastard." 

His release is swift, a sudden coolness that spurts against the curve of her arse and drips down the back of her thigh before he collapses on her, breathing heavily, and they lay sprawled on the table trembling and sweat-drenched and woozy with each other's scent. And she says "thank you", and realizes they are not in the hall anymore, but she has been dreaming, and is in her own bed. That they only walked out of the hall, and that he is out on the battlefield seeing to the dead. Guilt, like the cat she's never had, furls on her chest and needles her flesh with it's claws. What a ridiculous thing to have imagined. Sinful, even. Although when she closes her eyes again and tries to sleep, she finds herself groping in the ether for some shred of it, some memory of what had never existed but felt so sweet.

Ramsay Bolton was her first. When she was a little girl, and growing up, and beginning to wonder about such things, she had asked Septa Mordane how happened, but the good septa had cooed and petted on her and said she was too young for such things. Jeyne Poole had seen Theon Greyjoy fucking some unknown kitchen girl behind the stables, but she gave as little help as Septa Mordane. During her life at Winterfell, she had never been kissed and hardly been touched by anyone. It was Joffrey who had kissed her first- a cold, bitter little kiss; and then Tyrion Lannister's wine-sour lips at their wedding, and the polite kisses he pressed to her hand when they were married. But she had never lain with a man, not until Petyr Baelish abandoned her to the Bolton swine and left her to be split apart by the Dreadfort's bastard. 

She pulls the fur coverlet up to her chin, twisting her legs against her chest until she has curled up like a pill bug. It was only a dream after all. There is more to regret in living.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for your lovely comments and for liking the first chapter so much!! i may have laid it on a little thick in this one, but i'm stressed about brexit and needed a distraction. was meant to go with the first chapter, but i did say slow burn...which it still is. it was just a dream. next chapter: ANGST.


	3. Wolves and Flames

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sansa stark revists old ghosts. petyr baelish has a smirk and a plan. jon snow gets jealous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note on the formatting- one think I love about grrm's writing is how he interjects little thoughts from the characters in italics. ao3 won't let me format italics (at least in any way i can figure out), so thoughts that are meant to be italicized are presented as _text _to differentiate them from the rest of the action. it doesn't look pretty but it'll do. sorry guys (and thanks for all the support on the first two chapters!). xxx__

When Ser Davos finds Rickon Stark's body on the battlefield, he tells Sansa that she won't wish to see it.

"It was a foolish thing to do, my lady, not carrying him off before the charge." He pulls anxiously on his silver beard, heavy brows furrowed. "But the body...well, the body's not fit to look at."

She is almost offended that he thinks her so frail and delicate that she cannot look at her own brother, whatever may have happened to him. "Thank you, Ser Davos, but I am sure I have seen worse," she tells him, her civility icy. _I have seen Joffrey die at his own wedding, and I have dreamt of Robb and mother. _"I will see my brother."__

__The look on Ser Davos' weathered features is one of doubt, but he sets his mouth and nods._ _

__"We've laid him in the crypt, my lady. I will take you, if you wish."_ _

__She has not been in the crypt of Winterfell in all the time she was confined by Ramsay; she has not seen it in so long. In truth, she never liked it when she was a young girl either. Something about its dark corners, the wet smell of the underground, made her feel heavy and ill; and the statues that lined the walls, bearing the worn features of a hundred generations of Starks, loomed like ghosts beyond the light of a carried candle. Now it is worse, for there has been no one to clear away the cobwebs or fill the sconces with oil and fresh wicks or lay fresh flowers at the feet of Lyanna Stark's effigy. Ser Davos carries a tin lantern, and the light seems thin in the consuming blackness._ _

__Someone had the good sense to pull out the yew arrow that pierced his heart before laying him down, and someone else, incredibly, cleaned his face of mud and blood and combed his hair. If not for the softened concavity of his shattered mouth, he would look almost whole. But even still she realizes that he is not the boy she remembers. The Rickon she left behind came to her hip, had cropped hair, and a wildness in his eyes. The Rickon laid on the table before her has grown into a lean adolescent with dark curly hair and a mist of young beard on his cheeks, he wears ancient furs instead of boiled leather and wool, he would be taller than she were he to stand. When he was a little boy he burned with energy, would fall and run again with the strange buoyancy of a small boy._ _

__When she lays the back of her hand against his cheek, he is cold and hard as the Stark memorials that surround them. She draws her hand away quickly._ _

__"We will have to entomb him properly. Soon, before he begins to rot. And have Shaggydog's bones found and boiled so they can be interred together."_ _

__"My lady-"_ _

__"We can put them next to our aunt Lyanna."_ _

__"Perhaps you would prefer to have him next to your father."_ _

__She senses the looming presence of Eddard Stark before she turns around- how had she not seen him? Ned Stark, preserved forever in grey granite, with a tarnished greatsword held in his granite hand, a solemn granite grimace permanently etched on his face. Ned Stark did not smile often, but she suddenly wishes she could see him smile again, wish she could properly remember the way he smelled when he drew her into his lap, half-sinking into his furs, the way his beard scratched her cheek when he kissed her good night. Instead she thinks of the ring of Ice as it sailed for his neck. The way her own scream sounded as it rang through her body. The way his jaw was slack and his tongue was purple with his own blood, lolling from the mouth of his decapitated head, with a neck made from a spike of the Red Keep._ _

__For a moment she thinks she might vomit, but she turns away and stares into the unlit gloom until she is composed._ _

__"Yes. That would be best. And we will have the likenesses of Robb and my lady mother carved as well. With a longsword for Robb. And..." _Oh gods. _"And my sister Arya, and my brother Bran."___ _

____"I am so sorry, Lady Sansa," says Ser Davos._ _ _ _

____She says nothing. He fidgets with the leather handle of the lantern and draws a deep breath._ _ _ _

____"If I may be so bold, my lady, I must make a suggestion..."_ _ _ _

____"What is it?"_ _ _ _

____"Pardon me, but winter is coming. And I don't just mean snow and foul weather. There are things beyond the wall that you cannot imagine, and it is better to burn the dead."_ _ _ _

_____Burn the dead. _"The Starks have never burned their dead."__ _ _ _ _

______"I know, my lady, but they may wish to start."_ _ _ _ _ _

______She looks at Rickon's body again, as long as she dares. She cannot imagine leaving him to turn to ash, to be eaten up by fire, but that is weakness. There is no more time to be weak. She says, "Do what you think is best then, Ser Davos," and gathering her skirts climbs the spiralling staircase back to the surface. The pale sky hurts her eyes, but she is so grateful to be in fresh air and consuming light again that she sinks down against the wall of Winterfell, below the broken tower, and sits there with her head against her arms until she hears someone say her name._ _ _ _ _ _

______"Jon."_ _ _ _ _ _

______He has had a bath, she thinks. His skin is clean and his hair is loose, falling in black waves to the tops of his shoulders. She has never known a man to have such long hair, though most northerners do: only theirs was never so fine or so shiny._ _ _ _ _ _

______"Ser Davos told me you wanted to see Rickon."_ _ _ _ _ _

______"Yes."_ _ _ _ _ _

______"Sansa, you shouldn't have- he was shattered..."_ _ _ _ _ _

______"No." _Does he think I am some fragile doll, who faints at the sight of blood and cannot look at the dead? _"He looked alright. Older than I remembered. Someone had cleaned his face and he looked like himself."___ _ _ _ _ _

________He grimaces. "I couldn't stand the sight of him. Like that. It was my fault he was dead, I had to."_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________"No." She stands. Her head feels light but her legs are steady. _I am the lady of Winterfell. _"It was not your fault. It was no-one's fault. I told you what Ramsay was like. I knew we would not save Rickon."___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________They are quiet. He says, "Lord Baelish was looking for you earlier. I told him you were otherwise occupied."_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________"Where is he?"_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________"The great hall. He insisted on waiting for you."_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________"Where is Robyn?"_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________"Lord Arryn? Resting. It was Lord Baelish's idea...said he was overexcited by the thrill of battle."_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

___________Thank the gods for that. _"I'll have to see him. Did he say what he wanted?"__ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________"No."_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________She arranges her skirt, smooths her hair back into its braid. "Will you walk with me, Jon?"_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________"If you wish."_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________It is not far from her resting place by the wall to the massive oak doors that lead to the great hall. Before they would have greeted guests who were not of noble houses in the front hall of the great keep; it used to be her lady mother's pride, with its dual fireplaces and fur-cushioned chairs, the paintings on the wall that were gifts from Lord Hoster Tully for some marked anniversary of her wedding to Ned Stark. The windows looked out into the yard, and being on the upper story you could see the red leaves of the godswood tree in the distance. In the end the great keep has been burned, her mother's careful sense of order turned to ash. So perhaps such things do not matter after all._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________The fire is still roaring in the great hall. When Jon Snow pushes open the doors to let her pass through, she sees Petyr Baelish's lean form silhouetted at the fire, and when he turns to see them he is smiling. He has a narrow face and a close-cut goatee, and his dark hair has more grey in it than when he first took her away from King's Landing. But he is still as lean and sparse as ever, and his eyes are just as emotionless; and despite the battle he looks as fresh and clean as ever, in a long blue brocade tunic and leather boots, and a smell of milk and mint emanating from his body and mouth._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________"My sweet Lady Sansa." He opens his arms, as though welcoming her. _This is my home. _"I had wished to see you again, but I fear there has been no time."___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________"There is much to attend to." He refuses to sit, so she does the same; Jon, rather than leaving, has come to stand arms' length behind her, a glowering shadow. _He did say he was going to protect me. _"I am the lady of Winterfell, and I will look after my home."___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________"Not only the lady of Winterfell." He is smiling, he is always smiling. His eyes are fixed on hers, and she hates the way she can never look away from him. "You are the queen in the north now, you realize? Roose Bolton is dead, House Bolton is wiped out, and all of the Lannister pawns have been killed or driven out. By rights, you are your brother's heir now. You are the queen in the north."_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________She almost does want to sit down then. How had she not thought of this before now? She longs to turn and look at Jon but fears it will show some sort of weakness, she cannot take her eyes off Petyr Baelish. He may have been their divine intervention when they were about to crumble under Bolton's flayed fist, but he is still the man who left her to Ramsay. Still the man who betrayed her, and married her off to a mad man who took her body and her maidenhead the way. But not her spirit; at least she has that even still._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________When she doesn't respond, Lord Baelish says, "A queen has many enemies."_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________"Is that a threat?" Jon Snow's voice rings out through the hall._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________Baelish's eyes flick from Sansa to the man behind her. "No, that s a fact, Lord Snow. Or is there some other title you'd prefer?"_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________"Then what are you saying?" Jon continues. "You-"_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________"I am saying that your family has many enemies. Ned Stark had his honour but he had no discretion, and Robb Stark was brave but lacked political clout. King Tommen may be a boy, but his Hand is Kevan Lannister, and you have little better than a knight who was once a pirate, a band of savages, and..." He looks Jon Snow over carefully, as though appraising an animal, before meeting Sansa's gaze once again. "An illegitimate half-brother."_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________"What are you saying? I am weary, Lord Baelish." Too weary- she longs to sit down and drink something warm before letting herself slip into a long and dreamless sleep, although such a sleep has evaded her for months. Ramsay taught her that to sleep through the night was to ask for trouble, and now she cannot help but wake half a hundred times before morning. The dreams are something else entirely._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________"I am making you an offer, Your Grace. One that you best consider carefully before making a hasty decision."_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________"Then tell me what it is."_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________"I am offering you marriage."_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________Her heart skips a beat. "To Robyn?"_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________"To me."_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________"Absurd-" from Jon Snow, but Lord Baelish interrupts._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________"I am Lord Arryn's regent, and I have led his army to your defense, but...Lady Sansa, you have much to gain from such a match. My spies tell me that your uncle Brynden Tully has been killed, and Edmure Tully has bowed to the Frey and Lannister armies at Riverrun. It will not be long before King's Landing hears that there is a new queen in the north, and it will be shorter still for those armies- with Jaime Lannister leading them- to march on Winterfell. His men number in the thousands."_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________"We have our own men."_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________"Where are they, Lady Sansa?"_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________"Now that she is queen, the northern houses will have to bow to her and back her cause," says Jon._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________"Must they? Or will they place their allegiances with a proven victor?"_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________"You gave her away to Ramsay bloody Bolton-"_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________"Do you think I am a murderer?"_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________Jon Snow does not answer._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________"If we marry, you will not only have the Arryn bannermen to call your own, but the northern houses already loyal to you. I have connections in Westeros, in Mereen, in Braavos, and the Free Cities. More importantly, I have tact and I have money. And I will pledge all of this to you, my queen."_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________The way he says 'my queen' makes her throat close, her flesh crawl on her bones; and her head is spinning and her stomach thrash like a mess of eels. _There is no way out of this. _____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________________"And it goes without saying that a claimant with an heir of their own blood is far stronger."_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________________The weight of what he is implying makes her want to weep. _Do not weep. You are not weak. _The idea of Petyr Baelish making love to her reminds of her being a child and staring into a well, dropping a rock into the water she knows must be below and waiting heartbeat after heartbeat for it to land. It had been the first time she had realized her own mortality: that as a person she was worth as little as that stone, and living was falling blindly into a bottomless well. When she looks at Petyr Baelish, and his pale eyes, she has the sensation of sinking.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________________"I will think on what you have said," she tells him. It takes all of her strength to stride from the hall with her head up, and her dignity as visible as the grey wolfskin around her shoulders._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is a little more political than the last two but i hope you like it! i'm making a lot of progress so hopefully no one minds if i update more often than i probably should....but you know....life is short.


	4. The She-Wolf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which a moment of weakness makes sansa stark realize she has been strong all along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> probably a bit longer than the last two- hope you enjoy it anyway! apologies to bear for faking him out, and thanks to RedKross and everyone else who told me how to do italics, and to all your incredibly generous comments xxx

When she was in Winterfell under Ramsay's banner, she never went to the godswood. There was no telling why, for perhaps he would have let her, under guard and Theon Greyjoy's wandering, nervous eyes. Perhaps she was frightened of what lay there, or worse frightened by memory. The eyes of the weirwood seem to follow her as she walks through the trees, her footsteps muffled by humus and the air absolutely still. She wishes her cloak were warmer. Night is coming on, though she cannot see the darkness yet- only lavender streaks in the sky, and a whisper of cold. 

The water in the dark pool that sits below the weirwood is black and still. She can see her own reflection in its glassy surface, and she is half-frightened by her own appearance, she cannot remember when last she studied herself. The sharp planes of her cheeks, the angle of her chin, the way her hair falls against her temples, are deeply unfamiliar. It is more like looking at Catelyn Tully than at herself. Even her hair has darkened from bright auburn to a shade more like her lady mother's. There are smudges under her eyes and her lips are chapped. She is not the sweet, pink Sansa Stark she was once.

She sits beneath the weirwood tree. Her father would talk in that solemn, stony way of his were she to ask him what to do. He would say, "You are a northerner, and you must do what your honour tells you." And her mother? Catelyn Stark would hold her hands and recite her house words. "Family is the strongest. Duty can be unpleasant. Honour does not speak to your heart. What you must do is listen."

How she wants them both, how she has fought the feeling of helplessness that comes with knowing both her parents are dead for so long. How alone she is now, in this familiar place, with no one but Jon Snow to remind her of the home it once was. Her eyes sting as though she is going to cry. _Do not cry, you foolish and stupid girl. Do not weep._

When Jon Snow finds her, she is cold but has no desire to move. With her spine to the weirwood she can almost imagine leaning back in her father's arms- for how often did he come here, to sharpen his sword, to muse on his duties? Somewhere in its highest branches there is a soft wind blowing whispers in its blood-red leaves. She feels almost at peace. Not quite.

Somehow, he knows not to speak yet. He sits down beside her and props his arms on his knees. The wind blows his dark curls against his cheeks. Finally, after a time, he murmurs, "You can't marry him."

"I think that I must," she replies, quietly.

"I won't allow it."

"You have no say."

Impulsively, he reaches into her lap to grasp one of her white hands. "You're freezing."

"I'm not cold."

He is already pulling off his own cloak to draw around her shoulders, drowning her in furs and wool. Beneath, his leather surtout, battle worn. Still he clings to her hand, and with surprising tenderness. His fingers are rough and strong, the backs misted finely with hair, and his strokes his thumb across her knuckles as though trying to comfort her. A foolish sentiment. He says, "When you were a little girl I never imagined you were this...this strong. Do you know that you are strong?"

How to answer this?

"You are so strong, Sansa, but sometimes you need to be soft. If you are too hard, you will break someday."

"I am already broken. It was softness that did that to me."

"By who? By Joffrey? No, I don't believe that. By Ramsay? You are queen in the north and he is dead. When you are soft the blows cannot hurt you. Now is not the time for you to begin being hard."

He puts one hand on her cheek and kisses her forehead. It is a brief kiss, half on her skin and half on her hairline, but it is the touch of his hand that makes her shiver suddenly, that causes the flood of sensations from her last night's dream to swirl hotly in her mind. Her thighs clamp together under her skirt, and the breath she draws through her open mouth makes too loud of a sound.

"Sansa?" He looks at her. What is thinking? He can't know. He can't be thinking of this, for Jon Snow is like their family and Jon Snow has honour.

She is a Stark, she is a Tully, she is better than this.  _But I am a woman too, and I have never been kissed by anyone who was tender, and Jon Snow is tender and I am going to be fucked by Petyr Baelish in a fortnight if he has his way._

She tilts her head up and kisses him, and the shap of him is sweetly familiar. And why does he not break their embrace immediately, why does his hand linger on her cheek and his thumb touch her cheekbone for the briefest instead as his mouth opens obediently to hers, as though he were expecting it? She tastes him for an instant, a taste of smoke and mead and sweetness, and in that moment he pulls away and drops his hand.

"Sansa-"

Why she reaches out to seize his face between her hands and draw him back to her mouth she cannot say; it is as though she has been starving and he is something beautiful she must consume now in this very instant, or risk losing forever. Her arm slides around the back of his neck, pulling him closer still, sucking his lips between her teeth, biting down until she hears his sharp hiss of pain. She lays back on the humus, pulling him down with her, on top of her. He is larger and heavier than she and the weight of him crushes her breasts and her ribcage but she relishes it, relishes his mouth hot and wet on hers and the feeling of his erection stirring against her thigh. She relishes too the way he responds to her, his hand slipping under her waist to draw her up to him, until he thrusts her down and she feels the whoosh of freezing air on her skin where he once was.

"What are you doing?"

She lays on the humus feel swollen and weak. The ferocity of his kiss has exhausted her.

"Sansa."

"I want to kiss someone who won't hurt me. That's all."

He is quiet. She says, "The only man who ever touched me was Ramsay Bolton. He touched me and he broke me and I can still feel his hands on my body. I have nothing else to remember. I only want...something better. Something kinder. Because you and I both know that I am going to marry Lord Baelish."

"And you don't love him."

"No. How could I?" Curse her leaking eyes. Her lids are gritty and burning with unshed tears and she lifts her hands to press them against her forehead. The innermost part of her thighs are hot and her legs are pressed together from knee to ankle. 

"You know that I would never harm you, but we cannot."

"I know. I don't know...I am sorry. I shouldn't have."

He does not agree with her, nor chastise her; he stands quietly with one hand lightly on his mouth, thinking and expressionless. She sits up and pulls her hair over her shoulder. Long, thick, dark auburn hair, waved thickly over her shoulder and her left breast, full of knots and begging to be braided. An action which she performs dutifully now. Fat red bundle over another, over and over, until the fiery mantle was constricted to a fat rope. Still Jon stood, but she glanced at him she found him watching her. She rises slowly.

"I was not in my right mind. Exhausted." She waves her fingers towards her skull, as though suggesting she is mad, although they both know she is not. "It will not happen again, and I am sorry if I frightened you."

"You did not frighten me. Startle me, yes, but I was not frightened."

She shakes deadfall from her skirt and slides his cloak from her shoulders, offering it out to him. The wool is heavy, the fur heavier still, and she is weak.

"When will you give Lord Baelish your answer?"

"Tomorrow."

He has not taken the cloak from her yet, is still standing with his body turned slightly away from her and that heavy brow furrowed. At last she is forced to say, "Your cloak," and he takes it from her and swings it around his shoulders.

"This means nothing, Jon," she says desperately, as they leave the godswood. _Please don't abandon me. I need you even still._

"I know. It is nothing- don't think of it any longer."

Outside of the godswood, they part. Her body is on fire under her clothes, her head is spinning. _You may not weep but you are still a little fool._ Terror swirls in a hurricane in her chest, yet it is somehow misplaced. Not terror of her coming marriage, of the foreboding attachment to yet another man who has misused her to his own advantage, but a strange sense of something be snapped off in her chest, as though Jon Snow were a blossoming branch which she has grasped in both hands and thrown away from herself. And for what? For a few fierce moments of moist sensation? For a kiss that did not make her skin crawl. But it is a kiss that will bring her guilt and dismay, like all the other ones, for she is a fool after all.

She goes to her bed chamber and shuts the door, latching it behind her before flinging off her cloak and laying on the furs that cover her bed, struggling to catch her breath, to calm her mind and think on what is important and not on something like a kiss. She is the queen in the north. 

Yet she is Sansa Stark also. The queen in the north rehearses in her head how she will accept Lord Baelish's offer of marriage, the carefulness of her words and how she will make him swear his fealty to her, how she will ensure he does not snatch her lands and kingdom into his small fist and subdivide among southerners who would see her dead. The queen in the north is strong and silent. Sansa Stark wants to weep or scream or both, Sansa Stark wants to see her mother again, to hear Arya laugh and see Robb teaching Rickon and Bran how to spar in the yard. Sansa Stark has no brothers and no sisters but she longs for an embrace that will feel familiar, arms that are not a cage but a cradle. Instead heat coils in her belly and sits low between her hips, until she lays on her belly with her face to the furs and touches the soft warmth under her small clothes until she feels her own wetness on her fingers, and the coil of warmth releases through her body so that for an instant, she feels as though someone had cared for her enough to bring her pleasure. Jon Snow's kiss lingers on her mouth. The old dream, two nights old, plays out against her closed eyelids. 

. . .

Jon Snow is not to be found the next morning; Ser Davos tells her he has gone to the nearest village to find a stonemason for the crypt, as she had wished. She knows he is only doing what she wanted, and he will return by nightfall, but somehow she cannot help but feel strangely exposed without knowing he is near. In the end she faces Petyr Baelish with Tormund Giantsbane at her left and Ser Davos Seaworth at her right.

"Who the fuck's the man with a ferret's head?" Tormund asks, when Baelish enters.

Ser Davos shushes him sharply.

"My lady Sansa," says Lord Baelish.

She nods to him. "Lord Baelish."

"I trust you have an answer for my yesterday's query?"

"I do. And I accept."

The smile that spreads across his face shows his straight, perfect teeth and makes his eyes gleam grape-green. "I am so pleased, and so thankful," he says. He steps forward to her, grasping her hands in both of his. They are soft, hairless, with tapered fingers- the hands of someone who writes short letters and smells of balm and oil; the flesh is so cool so as to be almost clammy. "It will be an honour to call you my wife."

"It will be beneficial to call you my husband."

His expression freezes for the briefest of moments, so subtle she might not have noticed were she not looking directly at him. He says, "I hope you will find me a satisfactory regent," and releases her hands.

"You may join me for dinner, if you wish," she tells him, and sweeps from his presence. Tormund and Ser Davos follow close behind. She suspects she has displeased Lord Baelish with her coldness, but she is a Stark after all and he should not forget that, even if he fancies her to be Tully because of her hair. _Under this red hair beats the heart of a wolf, for I am as much a Stark as I am a Tully. I will let the currents guide me where they will, but I have the sharpest teeth in the seven kingdoms._

She presides over the table where Ramsay Bolton once planned offenses and arranged the little flayed men that represented his army to the holdings he wanted. The flayed men have been burned, the maps stacked to one side; and clean writing paper, freshly sharpened quills, a pot of ink and a blotter have been set up for her. The chair where she elects to sit is carved oak with snarling wolves on the arms and a bearhide seat. Ser Davos and Tormund stand before her, brows furrowed, waiting. For the first time she feels as though she has some power. The idea that she could say anything to these men and they would do her bidding makes her feel strong. Aggressive.

"Ser Davos, I want a marriage contract drawn up. Ser...ah- Giantsbane..."

"Tormund will suit me fine," grunts Tormund.

"Yes. Tormund, what have we done with Ramsay Bolton's body?"

"Still in his kennels." He grins, showing legion yellowed teeth in his rusty beard. "The dogs have not quit picked him clean."

"The wolves will see to him. Have his head cut from his body and mounted on the walls near the gate, and flay the body and put it below."

"As you'd like. And I'll relish it too- that blue-eyed cunt surely deserves it."

"Tormund, she is a queen."

"It is alright. Thank you, Tormund."

"I'll see to it now. I'm anxious to get my hands on..." He eyes Ser Davos with one raised eyebrow. "On the bastard."

Ser Davos stifles a sigh.

Furs scuffling, Tormund exists; Ser Davos shifts his weight, rather anxiously, hands clasped in front of him.

"My lady."

"Yes, Ser Davos."

"I am more than happy to help you with whatever you desire but, ah...it's shameful to say it, but reading and writing are not my strong suit. I can sign my name, and read off a raven, but contracts of such importance, I fear..."

She blanches. "I never realised- I'm sorry."

"It's quite alright, Your Grace. I...well, Lord Stannis' little girl, Shireen, taught me my letters. But we were separated before she could teach me anymore."

His tone is inexplicably sorrowful, and she wonders if he even realizes. _He is a good man. Perhaps the finest in this holding._ "That's alright, Ser Davos, but I will need a man of your wisdom to help me if I am to be queen. If you like, we may meet in the evenings to finish Shireen's lessons." _It will be a distraction for me- keep my mind off Petyr Baelish and Jon Snow._ "If it would please you, of course."

"I can't ask you to do that."

"Please. It would be good for me to have my mind set on something like that. You would be doing me a favour."

"Well..." More anxious shuffling, but at least he consents. "If it would help you, then I will not object."

"Good." She smiles broadly. "First, I have an idea I want to discuss with you."

When they have finished the letter, there is some debate as to how she shoulder sign her name, but they at least decide on a title that does justice to the north's new queen. She carefully signs her name and title, rolls and seals the message, and gives it to Ser Davos, who is half-smiling as he takes it from her.

"Send a raven."

When he was gone, she leans back in her chair.  _I am Sansa Stark. Daughter of Lord Eddard Stark and Lady Catelyn. Queen in the North. The She-Wolf of Winterfell, and I have not come to cower and whimper. A harsh winter is coming._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> self-identification with sansa stark runs slightly rampant, but sometimes u gotta do what u gotta do. next chapter: sexytimes? murder? who knows (not me. i have no idea what i'm doing but it seems to be working).
> 
> who's terrified for the season finale of GOT tomorrow? (me.)


	5. The Laughing Tree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sansa stark has a plan; jon snow questions his existence; petyr baelish underestimates the starks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so after the small technical error in last night's episode of game of thrones where sansa is not, in fact, named queen in the north, I have decided to continue this fic as I originally intended. it will be my happy fic in which sansa is queen. because as much as i love jon snow....we needed a queen in the north.

Watching the skies for the return of a raven proves the longest wait she has ever experienced. She leans on the parapets of Winterfell, squinting into the pale sky and praying to all the gods that snow will not come before her message is answered- if it is answered at all. Sending a raven is like throwing a stone into the dark. 

There are many preparations that must take place before her marriage to Petyr Baelish; there had been murmurings of a quick wedding that would culminate in the signing of a contract, but whether it had been Sansa's apparent displeasure at the idea or Petyr Baelish's pride that overthrew such a notion matters not. Instead Lord Baelish has overseen the repair of the small sept in the inner keep, built by Lord Eddard for his wife, so Sansa could be married in true southron fashion. And there is a wedding dress being made for her, suckling pigs being gathered for roasting, and Arryn banners hung. 

"Are you going to be like my mother now?" Sweetrobin demands of her, as she and he and Lord Baelish attempt quiet, familial evenings. When she does not answer, he clamours at her knee and pulls her gown. "Are you?"

"No. I am your cousin."

"And she will be more like a sister to you than a mother, my Lord Robyn, and she must be a mother to her own children. You're a man grown."

"Her children? She doesn't have any children!"

"Not yet. But she is to be a wife soon, and wives are mothers."

She squares her shoulders under her furs and tries to breathe slowly. Thrice in the halls has Petyr Baelish kissed her. Two, small pecks on her cheek; one a full-mouthed embrace. She has begged off further touches with myriad excuse- she is on her moon blood, she has eaten a bad mutton, she wants to remain chaste and pure for their wedding night. None of these things were true, but it was enough at least to keep his advances at bay for a few days at least. 

"You must feel no shame that you are a maid no more, Lady Stark," Petyr had told her, in a rather thin tone, as though he did not wish to offend her. "Many wives come to their husband's beds without a maidenhead, and as a queen it is not surprising."

If you had not sold me like chattel to Ramsay Bolton I would be a maid even still. "I will try not to let it worry me, Lord Baelish," she replied pleasantly. 

In the end it is not even Jon Snow who provides her comfort. With undeniable vim he has thrown himself into looking after Winterfell- the things she herself cannot see to or knows little about- and overseeing the creation of a granite memorial to Robb has taken up all his concentration. In the yard of Winterfell, three masons hammer at a block of black stone, and it is with a sense of wonder she watches her dead brother emerge from it. One evening, they burn Rickon's body in the hills beyond the battlements.

It has been three weeks since her acceptance of Lord Baelish's proposal, and she is sitting in the great hall with Robyn Arryn, half-drowsy from a cup of mulled wine, when Tormund Giantsbane bursts noisily through the doors and into her presence.

"There's someone coming."

Her heart leaps into her throat. Can it be them? She tells Robyn, "Stay here, and I will return soon," and catching her skirts into her arms, hurries from the hall after Tormund. The yard is in frenzy, and Jon Snow is by her side in an instant.

"There's a host on the south horizon, moving fast. I can't make out their sigils."

"Come with me onto the wall- we'll watch together."

He goes first up the rickety staircase to the top of the parapet, and one gloved hand reaches out to steady her way. Over the south gate, they crouch and wait. The bleached skull of Ramsay Bolton rattles a dozen yards away from them. It is mid-afternoon, a grey and sober day with a shuddering silver sky, and fat snowflakes have fallen intermittently since morning. They dot the ground for a few minutes before disappearing, and rest on the dark sleeve of her gown and Jon's cloak. The earth below is brackish, but on the southeast horizon between the cleft of two hills, a finger of green has revealed itself like moss. Even she watches, it moves towards them and expands, moving across the landscape like a flock of green birds. 

"What is it?" Jon asks, half to himself. His arms are braced on the stone wall, his shoulders stiff as wings.

She thinks she knows, but says nothing. He tells her, "I thought it was the Lannisters come north for you."

She lays her bare hand over his gloved one. "No. It isn't Lannisters."

He gives her a questioning look, as though he knows what she has planned without her telling him, and for a moment she is half tempted to tell him all, but changes her mind swiftly. There is no use giving hope where there is none. And it might well be a band of wildlings or some undetected enemy force coming to route them all.

In the end, it is neither of those things. When they are within a league of Winterfell she can make out the black lizard-lion that is the sigil of House Reed, and arrayed around it half a dozen more: Boggs, Cray, Peat, and Quagg, Blackmyre and Greengood. Each house with a hundred or more warriors, perhaps three thousand men on foot and on small, shaggy brown ponies, looking as though they have all crawled from the depths of a swamp. 

"It's the crannogmen," Jon murmurs.

They came. She almost smiles then, her joy is so great. _They came when I wrote for them to come. They came in honour of my father._

Below them, a lone rider pushes ahead of his host, mounted on a black pony with rolling red eyes. His thin voice reaches them on the wall:

"My name is Howland Reed of House Reed, sworn to House Stark, and I have come at the bidding of Sansa Stark, Queen in the North, She-Wolf of Winterfell. Will you please let myself and my lords enter, for we have come far."

She leans over the wall and shouts into the yard, "I am Sansa Stark, and I bid you let them enter, for they are our friends."

The wall on which they stand shudders with the force of raising the gate, and before it has even come to rest Howland Reed and six of his lords trot into the heart of Winterfell.

Sansa rushes down to meet them, with Jon on her heels. Howland Reed has dismounted and handed off his pony to a stable boy, and stands very still, surveying the whole holding of Winterfell. He does not look how she expected, when she first wrote and asked for him to come to Winterfell. He is smaller than herself, with shaggy chestnut hair reaching to his shoulders, and small, sharp grey eyes. When he sees her he doesn't seem to know who she is, but when she bows her head in respect he bends into a low bow.

"Your grace. You must be Queen Sansa- you must forgive me, I have not seen you since you were a child. You are the exact image of your lady mother."

A cursed sensation of weeping, but she nods and thanks him. "And thank you for coming. I wasn't sure if my message had arrived."

"The raven came a fortnight ago, and I would have set off at that moment, but there was some debate as to who should be left behind to guard the Neck. It would have been foolish to leave it, I'm sure you'll agree."

"Yes, of course. Lord Howland, may I offer you and your men food and drink? There is a fire in the great hall, and you must be weary."

"If it's no imposition."

"Of course it isn't. And may I introduce my brother, Jon Snow?"

Howland Reed glances swiftly across Jon Snow's tall body and rests on his face. "Snow, eh?"

"Ned Stark was my father."

"I can see that. You like exactly like a Stark."

Robyn Arryn is still waiting for her when she enters the hall with Jon Snow and the crannogmen. He springs up from the floor where he has been sitting and cries, "Where were you? Who are these people?"

"Hush, Robyn." She puts her arm for a moment around his shoulder when he runs to her, but it is not queenly to look after a little boy in the presence of her lords, even one with a title like Lord Arryn. "Won't you go rest in your room for a little while, sweetling? You must be tired."

"I'm not tired. I want to stay here."

She worries he will begin to howl. When she sits down, he kneels at her feet with his shaggy dark head against her knee; only then do Howland Reed and his men sit at table, and Jon Snow perches nervously near her. Two serving girls bring mead and mulled wine in pitchers, and another brings slabby boiled beef and potatoes with onion on platters. It is not fine food- nothing so rich as what she had in King's Landing- but it is filling and hot. No-one seems displeased with it, and another half-cup of mulled wine soothes her jangling nerves.

"Where is Lord Baelish?" she asks Jon softly, as the others sate their hunger.

"I don't know. In his chambers, I suppose."

"Put someone at the door. No one is to enter until I give leave."

"As you wish."

He rises and leaves in a hurry; Howland Reed, finishing his meal with a long draught of mead, bows to her.

"I have not been in the walls of Winterfell for many years, my lady, and I am sad to see how it has changed."

"We will rebuild. It is to be the strongest holding in the north."

"And your intended husband- this Lord Baelish- he is financing it?" 

"For now. He is overseeing the repair of our sept, for the wedding. And more than money, he has brought us an army."

At her knee, Robyn has fallen asleep. His thin shoulders heave and twitch with some unknown dream. He is not generous or sweet-tempered, but she has grown fond of him, quit without meaning to- not as a brother, but as someone else who has been swindled by the fierce intelligence of Lord Petyr Baelish. She says quietly, "But the army Lord Baelish brings to my marriage was never his to give. He is regent for this boy- Lord Robyn Arryn of the Vale."

"Your aunt's son."

She nods. 

"I was sorry to hear of her passing. A tragedy."

"My aunt did not pass. Lysa Arryn was murdered."

"You mentioned this in your letter." The grey eyes flash, almost as though he knows. Which of course he cannot.

"There was a rumour spread that it was a minstrel who pushed my aunt from the Moon Door of the Eyrie, but I witnessed her death myself and I tell you, that was not the case."

Robyn sleeps on. At the far end of the hall, Jon Snow re-emerges and stands with his hand on the latch.

"Lord Petyr Baelish murdered Lysa Arryn himself in memory of my mother, and I fear he will do the same to me for his own gain if we are married."

A murmur of dissent wriggles like water through those present, drifting towards the vaulted ceiling. She cannot look at Jon Snow. She cannot look at Robyn Arryn. Only at the edge of the table where Howland Reed sits tensely, listening to her.

"It is my desire to hang Petyr Baelish for the murder of Lysa Arryn, but I cannot lose the support of the Vale. If I do not succeed, Baelish will ally with the Lannisters and destroy us. Without an army, Winterfell and the north are as good as dead. I am the last of the Starks. You swore fealty to my father, you fought with him during Robert's Rebellion, and I ask you to fight for me now."

"The crannogmen are not match against the Knights of the Vale and the Lannisters."

"I know. But I am seeking allies from elsewhere as well. Theon Greyjoy, my father's ward, has returned to his home of Pyke, and the ironmen are fierce warriors. So too I know that the Martells of Dorne are as disdainful of the Lannisters as I, and though they have no love for Starks, I know they will understand the pain of their families meeting their end on the ends of Lannister swords."

"You can't be certain they will agree to any alliance."

"Of course not. But I am far stronger with your men in my holding than I would ever be without them."

"I understand. And of course, we will do our duty to your family."

"I expected as much. My father spoke very highly of you. He said you were one of the last men to see my aunt Lyanna alive, that you fought side by side with him."

"I did, and I loved your aunt Lyanna like a sister. But..."

"He trusted you. Anyone my father trusted, I trust in turn."

Howland Reid's dark eyebrows knit together. "Aye, you are indeed a Stark."

"We have Mormont forces, and a band of a hundred and fifty wildlings. Jon Snow will make introductions between our commanders."

"Your half-brother."

 _Why does he speak so? As though questioning whether the sky be blue._ "Yes, my half-brother."

He grips his knees, one in either hand, head tilting to one side as he frowns at her. "Did your father never tell you what happened in the Tower of Joy? With your aunt Lyanna? Even when Robert Baratheon died?"

"No, but I don't believe now is the time-"

"My lady. Your half-brother..." He leans towards her, lowering his voice. But he is not quiet enough. "Your grace, Jon Snow is the son of Lyanna Stark. He is not your half-brother. Lyanna Stark died giving birth to that boy, Jon Snow, and Ned Stark swore to protect him. I can't imagine why Ned never told you, but I tell you now to strengthen your claim on the north. Two Starks are stronger than a Stark and a bastard."

She feels as though her head has been strung and is ringing like a bell. "You aren't lying."

"I would never lie."

Has Jon Snow heard this? Can he hear their talk from the far end of the hall, guarding the door? She cannot tell- his face is as solemn and expressionless as it always is, as serious as their father's. _But he is not our father. We are not even brother and sister._

"Then who is his father?" she asks.

Howland Reed's jaw grinds, his eyebrows knit. "You haven't realized?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks again for your kind comments and i'm going to take the fact that people genuinely thought i would marry sansa to petyr baelish as a sign that we are all broken by this series and that i built up the suspense well. i'm not drawing things out as long as i'd like, but i do have a lot of other projects to work on (original work ho hum).
> 
> a few notes: howland reed does not actually appear anywhere in the books, but the title of this chapter is a reference to a story told in asos about how lyanna stark, at the harrenhal tourny, defended "the knight of the laughing tree" who was howland reed. 
> 
> i also want to apologize for errors in the text, i write these chapters very quickly and then post them because i've a lot going on. so please forgive me xxx


	6. Wolfsbane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sansa stark hatches a plan. jon snow broods. preparations are made for a royal wedding.

She doesn’t see any madness in Jon Snow.

Or is it Jon Targaryen now? Or some other name, more exotic that simply  _ Jon _ ? He doesn’t look like a Targaryen: he looks like a Stark. Although maybe those features will reveal themselves with time, the way the stories of her aunt Lyanna began to surface in him. Her nobleness, her dark hair, her bright eyes, her bravery. He is Lyanna, and not Ned, Stark’s son. It is a wonder she never realized it before- not herself, nor her lady mother, who hated him for so long.

Jon Snow. Jon Stark. Jon Targaryen. If Robert Baratheon had not deposed the Mad King, it might well be Jon Snow on the Iron Throne. Raised half a Targaryen and half a Stark, without a hint of debasement in his life. This is impossible to imagine too. For has she not always known him as the bastard son whom Catelyn Stark loathed? The accidental bairn her father brought home, wrapped in his cloak, before she was born? 

Sansa Stark was a baby of reconciliation, the first child born after Ned Stark broke her mother’s heart. She has sorted that out for herself, and perhaps that was why she always seeks peace, seeks to sooth. It is in her very conception.

But Jon Snow. She has little notion of how he feels- he is fully Stark in that regard- for he begged his leave of the gathering and withdrew, and remained withdrawn in the days following. Twice has she sought him, and twice been avoided. She hears him wandering the corridors at night, and the glimpses of his face belie sleepless hours- but then she has not slept either, in her turn, but laid awake pondering how changed her world is now. Does Jon resent her? Think he deserves to take her place as ruler of the North? 

No, he wouldn’t. He is not that sort of man.

Two days before the wedding with Petyr Baelish is to transpire, she grows impatient with his aloofness and orders him to her chambers- not the great hall, but the very room where she sleeps, thinking it will be more private and away from the hired eyes of Lord Baelish. She sends the message by way of a servant boy. It is uncouth, to be sure, and perhaps disrespectful in light of everything. But a man’s pride is something she has learned is a foolish thing to baby; Jon Snow, whoever he is, has been raised better than that.

Already her father’s house is being reassembled, even without Lord Baelish’s help, which she has rejected upon its renewed offer. The villagers have missed the Starks, it seems, and word of her wedding has spread to the nearby towns; in return, gifts have begun arriving, along with pledges of loyalty and promises to attend, and husbandless women and their children seeking work in Winterfell. She accepts all whom she can, sending them where their professed skills will be most useful. Not a remnant of Bolton remains in her home. She promises herself that she will be as strong and good a lady of Winterfell as her mother- not beautiful and scheming like Cersei Lannister, a queen who does not lift a finger but to lift wine to her mouth, or to send some sellsword after an enemy.  _ I will be like Visenya or Lyanna or Catelyn Tully. I will not let someone else do my own work.  _

But she has employed a little girl, Brigot, to be her maid, if only to assist in the more transiet things a queen must concern herself with, like errands and mending. The girl is a ruddy-cheeked thing with fair hair whose father had died fighting for Robb when she was a baby: clumsy and quiet, but sweet. She can braid hair beautifully and has fixed Sansa’s red locks into a coronet of small, fine braids, wound like a heavy crown around her head. Her dress is fine too, dark pearl gray with embroidered lilacs, and she wears wolfskin cloak Ser Davos has unearthed in some forgotten closet. She looks queenly, even if she does not quite feel that way. A queen never worried over her appearance, except to impose respect for herself. 

Jon does not refuse her command, as she has known he would not. Brigot announces him softly, and holds the door as he ducks into the room. He looks dour, eyes smudged with sleeplessness, and although she sees the Stark blood in him he wears the same boiled leathers and patched cloak of the Night’s Watch as always.

“You asked for, my lady.”

_ My lady _ . How very clean and impersonal. She says, “You may leave us, Brigot,” and the girl curtsies and leaves, shutting the door behind her.

They are both standing, herself at the fireplace and him still lingering by the door. There is hard cheese and wine, and a bowl of cracked walnuts with dried berries, on the table, and she asks if he wants something to eat or drink.

“No, thank you.”

“No wine?”

“No.”

“Then let us sit.”

He does sit then, because she has suggested it, but she remains at the fireplace for the sheer pleasure of looking at him from an advantage. That he must look up to see her. She is frustrated with him, after all, and they are both rulers, although only one of them has anything to show for it. The silence is grating and she wants him to speak, wills him to. 

“What did you want with me, Your Highness?”

She nearly chokes. “Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“Call me that. Shouldn’t I say that you?”

“Of course not.” He shifts uncomfortably in the chair. 

“But you’re the son of Rhaegar Targaryen.”

“Don’t say that name. He stole and raped Lyanna Stark. He might well have killed her himself.”

There is strange passion in him now, his hands curl into fists on the curved arm of the chair and his jaw tightens under his beard. “All my life I have lived in this castle, all my life I have called Ned Stark my father, and now I learn that my true father was the son of a madman? A...rapist and a murderer, ignoble and dandyish? I wish Howland Reed were lying. Then I could live with myself.”

He falls silent, and she wants to shake him until he speaks, until he tells her what has kept him from sleeping, kept him sullen and alone and away from her. She says, “What do you mean,  _ then you could live with yourself _ ? You could be king of the whole realm, Jon. You have more power than anyone else living. More than me, more than the Lannisters, more than the girl across the sea and her dragons, if the stories are true.” 

“I never wanted power. I wanted…” He leans forward, holding his head in his hands. “I wanted to do what was right, like my...like Eddard Stark.”

“Doing what was right got my father killed, Jon. Honour kills. But you have a chance to change everything. It’s more than I could even dream of.”

“But how would I do that? I’ve no proof that Rhaegar Targaryen was my father, or even that Lyanna was my mother, except the word of a crannogman. And you know the stories- everyone else who would have known is dead. So what proof have I? Without proof I’m no one.”

“That’s not true. You’re a Stark. You’re a hero. You’re Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, Jon. And you’re one of my own people, even if you aren’t my brother-”

He laughs bitterly, cutting off her words. “I’m not Lord Commander. I’m not even a part of the Night’s Watch anymore.”

Her brow wrinkles as she looks at him, hunched in the chair, his fingers tangled in his black curls. “What do you mean?”

“My watch ended,” he says, to his knees.

She wishes he would look at her. It is easier to know a man by his face, to see his meaning in his eyes. “I still don’t know what you’re talking about, Jon. I thought your vows were until death.”

“Exactly.” He does look up then, and she thinks she sees a weariness in his dark, steady gaze that wasn’t there before now. He says, “I died, Sansa. I was overthrown by my men and they killed me.”

“But you’re not dead.”

“No, but I was dead. And I came back.”

“That can’t be right,” she says.  _ But would he lie? _

“It is right. They stabbed to death, and I died. And I’ve seen the dark halls where the dead feast, I’ve swum in their black seas. But a woman brought me back- a red woman, Stannis’ priestess from Asshai. Some strange magic of hers- it was like getting pulled out of drowning suddenly. And here I stand.”

“If you weren’t Jon Snow I’d think you were a liar.”

“I’m not lying. Not about this. There are things in this world that can’t be explained, that’s what I’ve learned since we left Winterfell. Honour doesn’t save your head. You can learn to love someone when you know you shouldn’t. Dead men can walk again, and a hundred thousand of them are walking towards us even now. Dragons can come out of rocks, and even a bastard can wind up a mad prince.”

“You aren’t mad.”

“But what I am? That’s what frightens me. Aerys was insane, his children most likely were too- Targaryens are mad, Sansa. And if I’m one of them, what if I’m insane?”

There is real pain in his voice, real fear, and although this talk wasn’t why she had asked him to come to her she feels as though she might weep for him, for both them, and for all they have seen and done. Even her wedding to Petyr seems small at that moment, a triviality, an oversight. Have not she and Jon Snow been wounded by their own brothers, or men who ought to have been as much? Her cheeks burn. In two steps she has gained the room and kneels on the floor in front of him- hardly regal, for a queen in the north, but then he is a prince. Or a king? She cannot tell. 

Her hands fold over his own- they are so small compared to his, and soft and white. A lady’s hands, and himself a fighter so hardened he has crossed the threshold of death and lived to tell her of it. She touches his scarred cheek, makes him look at her through a frowst of black hair.

“You are not mad, Jon Snow, nor will you ever be. The gods brought you back to this world for a reason. You are an anomaly. We both are. We’ve both survived.”

He seizes the wrist of the hand that rests on his cheek, gripping like a woman in labour, and their eyes meet- properly, it seems, for the first time in days. She sees something in him, again, that wasn’t there before. Defeat? Defiance? She cannot tell. Only that it is fierce in her gaze and should have made her withdraw, not the way someone ought to look at a queen. The pad of his thumb is on the ball of her hand, pressing, and somehow her fingers have found themselves in his curls. His hair is fine as silk and she has the urge, suddenly, to run her fingers through it. Root to tip, to fist it up in her hands and make him growl. And then suddenly, for the briefest of moments, he rests his palm on the crown of her hair.

“The wildlings would say you’re kissed by fire. Means you’re lucky.”

He withdraws his hands then. She stays crouched by his knees, clinging to the arm of his chair to support herself.  _ Seven hells. _

“But that isn’t why you asked me here. None of this. I’m sorry, my lady- too selfish-”

“”No, you’re not. I wanted to talk to you- you’ve been so aloof. And I have needed you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright- you have a great deal to think about. But I…” She searches for her words, choosing them carefully. “You know I cannot marry Lord Baelish.”

“I do.”

“I have...some ideas to predicate the necessity of that marriage not occurring, if you’ll understand.”

His eyes narrow. “Perhaps I do.”

“I need you to deliver a message for me. Can you do that?”

“I can.”

She rises then, going to the locked chest at the foot of her bed. The key for it is pinned to her pocket, the way her lady mother kept important keys safe, but she must lift her skirt and bare her leg to get it, and wonders if he is watching her while she does this- if he has turned in his chair to see her long leg in its heavy wool stocking, the white flesh of her thigh. She would not be surprised in the gods cursed her endeavors, in light of her sinful thoughts. 

Unless he is Lyanna Stark’s son, after all. 

The key found, she opens her trunk and finds a folded letter, no larger than her hand, and sealed with her own mark. 

“Can you deliver this to Lord Yohn Royce, on my behalf? He is come for my wedding, and we have put him up in the west tower, but you must ensure it goes from your hands to his own. No one else can touch it.”

“I’ll say I want to ask him of his battle tactics when we took Winterfell.”

She smiles as she gives him the letter. “Thank you, Jon.”

He rises, tucking the letter into his surtout, and gives her a tight little bow. “Whatever you ask of me, my lady, I will do.”

She lifts her heavy skirts to the sides, so they stand out like a pale half-moon, and curtsies low in front of him. “I thank you for you kindness, my lord.”

For a long moment he simply stands and looks at her, as though he doesn’t understand why she has bowed to him; then, abruptly, he withdraws. The door shuts noisily behind him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i guess i should start this with an apology since its been over a year since i updated this fic, but you guys keeping liking and keep commenting and its been bugging me ever since. so i have for you all.......an update. hope at least one person was hoping this day would come- if so its for you. its a filler chapter, yes, but i had to get some stuff squared away before continuing. apologies if there's some continuity errors...hopefully everything's good.
> 
> probably going to add on this a lot. yes, my main inspiration is the return of the show (and the premiere wasn't terrible??), and surprise surprise, its been over a year and im still bitter that sansa isn't queen in the north. hence this update. next chapter will be more exciting- i promise!


	7. The Mockingbird's Eye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sansa stark puts a plan into action. ser davos expresses his doubts. petyr baelish is coolly surprised.

She wakes too early on the day of her wedding, and goes to the window to find that it has begun to snow. Half a foot lays over the plain around Winterfell, and against its walls it must be knee-deep already. The sky is dark, and the snow cuts out pale feathers against it. She wraps herself in her wolfskin and sits looking out until there is a knock at the door of her chamber.

Perplexing. It must not yet be the fifth hour of the morn, the household will have barely begun to stir, and the wedding itself is not til noon- there will be time enough to prepare herself for it. In her silence comes a second rap, brusque and impatient.

“Who’s there?” she calls.

“Its me.”

Jon Snow.

Strange that he should seek her out like this. She says, “Come in,” and draws the wolfskin closer around herself. He carries no light and is muted with shadows, wearing only a white nightshirt tucked hastily into his trousers. It is the first time, she realizes, since they have been reunited that she has not seen him entirely garbed in black. It isn’t buttoned to the throat, and he appears luminous even in the dim.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, my lady,” he says.

“You didn’t. I couldn’t sleep.”

“Nor could I.” He stands in the midst of the room, hands clasped behind his back, and she gestures for him to sit across from her on the windowsill. She has drawn her feet up, her bare toes under the edge of her cloak. When he sits he so near she can feel the heat off his body, fearsomely warm. His breath fogs the pane of glass nearest him, beads into trails of condensation.

“It’ll be a strange day for a wedding,” he says, “with all this snow on the ground.”

“Aye, but we shall be warm enough in the great hall. There shall be a fire in every hearth and a sea of mulled wine.”

“A royal affair.”

“Yes.”

“And I suppose it shall be done in the light of the seven, and not the old northern way.”

“No. I shouldn’t like the bedding either.”

“I would kill any man who touched you with your permission.”

She looks at him then. His gaze is fixed elsewhere, beyond the walls of her chamber or the fields around Winterfell. She says to him softly then, “I give you my permission to touch me.”

When he looks at her, she moves forward so she is on her knees and their lips are near enough to touch, her hair loose and shrouding her face like curtains. He tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, exposing her white cheek to the glow of the snow, and then he kisses her. Softly, so chaste it might not even be called a kiss. Their lips hardly touch. Yet it sends a string of shocks bubbling down her neck and over her shoulders. She hears him inhale, and he cups the back of her head to deepen their embrace, her thick hair in great handfuls under his fingers. Her lips part as though of their own volition, her body feels as though it is rising up to him, to his warmth.

Without warning he gathers her hard against him, laying her legs over his lap and and cradling her body against his arm. The wolfskin cloak has fallen. Only her nightdress separates herself from him, thin and transparent. She wraps her arms round his neck to keep her near, their kiss unbroken and deepening still yet, the taste of him like honeyed apples and warm as woodsmoke, and she can feel herself growing wet just for the sheer animal pleasure of feeling his body so near her own, separated only by thin fabric, and the scrape of his beard on her cheeks.

Her hand goes to the hard insistence between his legs, and her touch makes him pull away from her with a hiss. But he doesn’t let her go. They cling to one another as drowning men cling to flotsam.

“Your wedding is in mere hours, my lady.”

She groans in frustration. “ _Stop_ calling me that.”

“What should I call you then? Your Highness? Your Grace? My queen?”

Something about the way he says _my queen_ makes her body ache for him, ache to be opened and enjoyed the way she has longed for him to do. “Only if I may call you my king.”

“I am not king.” He tightens his grip around her almost painfully for an instant, then relaxes to smooth her hair from her face. He grips her chin. Looks into her eyes. “What should I call you, then?”

“Call me by my name.” She kisses him, briefly. “Call me Sansa Stark. And I will call you Jon of the house Targaryen as is your right.”

“Call me a bastard. Command me, Sansa.”

“Love me.”

What they do can hardly be called lovemaking, although there is love between them, raw and tender as a bruise. Rather it feels more like fucking, uninhibited and raw and fast. She leaves marks on his white skin, bluish-violet, and he sucks her nipples cherry-pink, teeth scraping her neck and the inside of her thigh. He holds himself back, she thinks, until she is in a contorted frenzy of acute pleasure and begs him to release. Only then does he give himself to his own pleasure, shuddering and collapse on top of her, as she wraps her legs around his thighs to push him home, so the heat of him pools inside of her. There is something exquisite about it, about the way he tucks his hand to tease her to another orgasm out of her, so they come together, her name in his mouth like a prayer: _Sansa._

When she wakes up she is alone and in her own bed, in a heavy wool nightgown, and it is the morning of her own wedding day and Jon Snow is too noble to visit her bedchambers at night except in her dreams. She is covered in a thin sheen of sweat and her smallclothes are nearly soaked through with her arousal. Flushed, she kicks them off and under the bed, replacing them with a fresh pair before her maids come to dress her. Her mouth feels swollen as though she really had been kissing someone, but perhaps she only imagines it.

The maids are excited- they don’t know the truth of anything- and there is much talk as to how she should do her hair and if she should wear a crown. She has no crown, and declares she will wear her hair loose but for a few fine braids wrapped round her head, and a veil of foaming Myrrish lace- a gift from her new husband. The wedding gown too was a gift, imported from Braavos, layer upon layer of white silk totally unsuited to the chill northern weather. The skirts are heavy and tucked the narrow waist, and the bodice is white brocade stiff with the palest grey embroidery. It leaves her arms bare, but she lays the maiden’s cloak, lambswool streaked dark grey and white, over her shoulders.

She has asked Ser Davos to walk with her in the sept to be given away, and finds him waiting in the hall outside her chamber. The old knight looks noble but drawn; she has continued her lessons in teaching him to read, as promised, and he has made great progress both in his letters and his pride. But now he looks almost angry, even as he offers the crook of his arm to her.

“My lady, you know I don’t like this arrangement a bit,” he tells her quietly as they begin to make their way to the sept. “There is a foul smell about that man and I don’t just mean the perfume he wears.”

“I know, Ser Davos…”

“If you were my daughter…” He huffs angrily. “Well, if you were my daughter I would never have given you permission to wed him- begging your pardon, of course. Only t’is a shame to see one so young as you married in such a way. A girl ought to marry for love.”

“I understand, ser, but you know as well as I do that love and duty are never twins.” They reach the staircase and she gathers her skirts in her hands, descending delicately so as not to trip. She wore slippers, but the stairs were steep and narrow.

“Just once, you know, I’d like to see a fairer finish to something in these times,” Ser Davos calls after her. “But that is life, I suppose.”

Jon is waiting at the foot of the stairs, wearing instead of his blacks a dark grey surtout onto which has been fixed the outline a wolf’s head in black thread. The stitching is clumsy, but it is as near enough a duplication of the direwolf sigil as she may have hoped. She wants, suddenly, to weep; he looks so proud. When there was no doubt that she has seen it he quickly throws the edge of his cloak over himself, hiding it from view, before Ser Davos can see it.

“Are you ready, my lady?”

She wishes he would have called her Sansa, but that was a mere dream. She nods. “Yes, Jon, I am ready.”

“Are you going to take his cloak, like they do in the south?” he asks her, low.

“I wondered that myself,” says Ser Davos. “It isn’t quite right for a queen…”

“I will do what is necessary,” she says. “You need not worry.”

Ser Davos offers her arm, and Jon Snow walks behind them- her queensguard, she realizes, although she would never have asked him to be such a thing. They make a strange trio making their way through the halls of Winterfell to the newly-repaired sept, and although the new servants are in a flurry of activity preparing for the evening’s festivities each bow in their turn and bid her good wishes. She merely nods in return. She has taken no breakfast, for her stomach has already turned to jelly with the uncertainty of what is to come.

The broken door of the sept has been replaced with one of green and red glass in heavy oak panels. It is Petyr Baelish’s coin that have supplied most of the necessary repairs, as well as much of the feast, and she admits to herself that it looks nearly as grand as it had during her father’s life. She wonders if Lord Baelish is resentful of repairing the sept Ned Stark had built for Catelyn Tully, or if he took some sort of perverse pleasure in covering over her father’s work; she knows that he has always loved Lady Catelyn, even when she was wed and married, and that he has taken a liking to her when she bears such a resemblance to her mother has not escaped her notice. Nor, she thinks, had it escaped anyone else’s. Certainly not the notice of Ser Davos, and she guesses Jon Snow feels the same.

There is some legend around her family, at least among those who had been alive during the rebellion. Now she might well become a legend of her own, but for Petyr Baelish she is merely the end of a sentence begun long ago.

The sept is full of watery pink light and a handful of noble lords and their families who have decided to brave the cold to attend the wedding of the queen in the north. Mostly the northern lords- little Lyanna Mormont with a fearsome scowl, some Glovers and Umbers, and Howland Reed along with a few of his retainers, all wearing their same mossy clothes but newly clean-shaven. Robyn Arryn, looking bored and fidgeting, sits in the front row. Besides this, there are lords of the Vale- she sees Lord Garold Grafton and his son, Ser Symon Templeton, and Lord Royce, towering over them all and glowering over his dark grey beard. Her heart leaps to her throat. He faces her but does not make eye contact, and she tries to ascertain something from his face. He might well have been carved from stone. She has no concern for the northern lords, but the lords of the Vale are another matter entirely. She is only half Tully, after all, and Petyr Baelish was born in their strange, rocky country; but she knows the Lords Declarant have no love of Lord Baelish, even if he was one of their own. She has, without realizing become a gambler.

Where they managed to find a septon she cannot guess, but he looks appropriately round and pious, although his fingernails are dirty and his robes threadbare. With a rustle of leathers the crowds rise for the queen. And there is Lord Baelish, standing at the end of the walk. His tunic is dark green slashed with silver, and at his collar and cuffs is silver-grey fur. A jet mockingbird glitters on his breast. He smiles when he sees her, and she cannot help but imagine he seems rather sinister. Like a cat who has caught a small bird in its claws.

_I am a wolf and you are no more than a mockingbird. Wolves do not trouble themselves with feathered things._

It seems many miles before she is at his side in front of the septon. Ser Davos seems reluctant to let her go, but she gently kisses his grizzled cheek and manages a smile. He does not smile in return. Jon Snow hovers, looking so stormy he seems to take up more room than usual.

“You look beautiful,” says Lord Baelish softly, before the septon begins to speak. “As lovely as your lady mother.”

“Thank you.”

“Who will remove this maid’s cloak,” asks the septon, sound pinched, “since her father is not present?”

“I will remove my own cloak,” says Sansa.

She reaches up to undo the silver clasp at her throat that holds her grey and white lambswool over her shoulders. Lord Baelish gestures to two little boy perched on stools behind him; both of them comes hurriedly forward, one bearing a heavy wool cloak in Arryn colours, the other bearing a small cushion draped with a silver cloth, which he pulls away with a great flourish. Under this lays two crowns.

It surprises her, and by the intake of breath at her side she knows Ser Davos and Jon Snow are surprised as well. The larger of the two is wrought of iron spun like vines in an open circlet, and set with roses of silver with blue hearts. Amethysts, perhaps, or sapphires. The second is smaller, heavier, and in the center is set a bird in midflight, next to the crescent moon. A crown for the regent of a queen.

He is smiling widely when he sets the crown on her hair, and it feels strangely light on her head. She lifts her chin and draws a deep breath.

“You wear it so well, my lady,” he murmurs. “Will you do me the honour of placing my crown yourself?”

Her eyes flick down to his crown, and then up to his face, to the gleam in his eyes she cannot read. She says, “Jon, will you lay Lord Baelish’s crown?”

Petyr Baelish looks perplexed but maintains his thin smile even as Jon Snow steps forward and brusquely sets the crown on the older man’s head. “Thank you, young man,” Lord Baelish says, dripping with graciousness. “I hope I will wear it well.”

She slides her cloak from her shoulders and hands it off to Ser Davos, who folds it over his arm. He is tight-lipped, the tendons of his neck drawn taut as wire. Lord Baelish lifts the Arryn cloak, looking as though he enjoys the feel of the wool against his unworked palms, and before he can lay it over her shoulders Jon Snow has removed his cloak and thrown it over her.

The lining, she realizes, has been pinned with a Stark sigil, worn and dirty from Robb’s time but clear enough to make out the grey direwolf against the white. It wasn’t what she planned to happen, and she resents Jon for this suddenly, but pulls it tight around her shoulders and backs into the waiting arms of Ser Davos as chaos begins to overtake the crowd. Robyn Arryn leaps from his seat and shrieks, “Seize him!” with more regency than she thought the boy could ever possess; Lord Royce gains the front of the room in three long strides and seizes Petyr Baelish by the arm.

“Lord Baelish, we are taking you in hand for the murder of Lysa Arryn,” he growls. “I never thought you should become our Lord Protector, and I was quite right.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Petyr Baelish.

“I saw you push Lady Arryn out of the moon door,” Sansa says, with more venom than she feels. “You blamed it on her minstrel, but it was you- I saw you.”

“Then you did not see correctly.”

_How can he remain so calm? He must know that the penalty for death is death in its turn._

“Are you calling your queen a liar, sir?” demands Ser Davos. “You’ve placed a crown on her head yourself, and now you’re suggesting she is a liar?”

“Of course not- I only think she did not see correctly. It’s so easy to be overcome, when one has been through as much as our dear lady.”

“Take him to the rookery, and lock him there,” Sansa orders. “Let the mockingbird roost with his own kind.”

Lord Royce moves Lord Baelish bodily in front him, while Robyn hops anxiously between him and Sansa and shrieks. “That bad man! Kill him, Sansa, hang him from a tower and let crows eat his stupid eyes!”

“Hush, Sweetrobin-”

“I thank you for your brevity, Your Grace,” says Lord Baelish, and then he is taken away.

_I thank you for your brevity? What a strange thing to say._

“You took away my mother!” screams Robyn Arryn after him, and then goes very still, clutching his belly. His eyes glaze for a moment, and then he drops like a stone.

Sansa half-catches him in her arms before he hits his skull on the stone floor of the sept, but he is too large for her and they both fall heavily. He has gone terrifyingly stiff, like a dead man, and the fierce tremors of his tiny body are so severe she can hardly keep hold of him. Ser Davos is at his head, stuffing the Arryn cloak under his head and stroking the long hair from his face. The sept is alive with shouts for maesters, for water, for explanation.

“What can we do for him, my lady?” asks Ser Davos.

“Keep him still and quiet,” she says, cradling him to her. “And comfort him.” _I know how it is to have your mother snatched from you, Sweetrobin._

She feels a gentle pressure on her shoulder, and sees familiar hand of Jon Snow.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the drama in this is High and im sorry....please feel free to tell me your thoughts and feelings, like most of the writers (if not all) on ao3 i LOVE getting comments on my work. i had some trouble characterizing petyr in this, just bc there's not really been an instance in the books or the show where he's been in a position like this really, so im really hoping he's not totally ooc in this chapter. but yes, i hope ppl enjoyed this and i'll have a new chapter up soon if anyone wants it...


	8. The Sword and the Sentence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sansa follows her father's advice. jon snow plans a journey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really, really want to finish this fic. However, I started it specifically to fix plot holes that I saw in the show. However, with season seven now finished, I sort of feel like the plot holes are so big you can drive a truck through them, and though the main reason I started this fic in the first place was because I thought should be queen in the north instead of Jon, the second reason- Littlefinger staying alive- has been fixed.
> 
> So in light of that, I am changing several things in this fic in order to make it more streamlined and allow me to conclude it cleanly. First, I have deleted the most recent chapter in the fic. It didn’t fit, and given that Petyr is no longer in the show (and this was simply meant to fix what I thought was wrong with the show), he’s also out of the fic. Like I just...he was kicking around and I was getting annoyed with myself for my Bad Writing. anyway here ya go.

They executed Lord Baelish on the plain above Winterfell, with the Lords of the Vale and of the North present to witness the sword’s mortal swing. Whoever passes the sentence should swing the sword. She had heard her father say it often enough, but in her girlhood had not dreamt of passing sentence on anyone. Had never even witnessed an execution, until the one that ended her father’s life. She had worn a fine dress that day, and worn her hair like a southron lady. Even now she could hear the echo of her screams on the stony walls of the Sept of Baelor. It was though they were someone else’s, however, and not her own. Some other girl had watched her father die. Some other girl had screamed, and she had merely watched; and now she carried the memory in the pit of her belly like an egg, careful not to let its slimy contents sully her.

This time, she dressed like a northerner, in pale dove grey beneath a darker grey cloak, heavy with furs, and wore her hair the way she remembered her mother used to wear her own. It had snowed in the night, and frost crunched under the hooves of their horses. The sky was pale and heavy with unshed snow, and eerily silent. She had hardly stirred beyond the walls of Winterfell since she returned to it, and the world seemed harder, somehow, than it had been.

It was Jon who carried the axe, slung over his chest- an axe, forged by the smith in Winterfell, for they no sword strong enough for such a task. She had heard him sharpening in the night before, the hollow rasp against its sharp edge. Even in the dull light it gleamed cruelly. She glanced at him, briefly, riding beside her on his heavy brown mare; he looked grim but so calm, so much like Ned Stark. He had always been the most Stark of all of them, and she had looked like pure Tully. 

But there is a wolf inside of my heart, she told herself, believing it more now. Ned Stark is my father, and not Jon’s, and we have our own legacies to protect. 

Two guardsmen pushed Lord Baelish to his knees and put his neck over the stone. He hadn’t begged or pleaded. All the time he’d worn the same wily, devilish smirk as always, as though there was some secret he knew that she did not.

“Have you anything to say now, before the sentence is passed?” Sansa asked him. She wished her voice had rung out cleanly over the cold earth, but it wobbled despite herself. Perhaps it was the look in his eyes as she stood before him, the way he met her gaze evenly and without remorse. 

He said, “I do.”

“Speak then,” commanded Jon Snow bitterly.

She gave him a hard look to be silent and he lowered his eyes. Petyr Baelish, kneeling before her, spoke out loudly and clearly. 

“Whatever I did, Lady Sansa, I did for you. I am not afraid to die. I am only afraid of what may befall you with me here to look after you. To protect and to love you. Barring a cruel twist of fate, you would have been my daughter- and barring that, you would have been my wife. If my time on this earth has come to an end, then so be it. But you will always carry all that I taught you, and you will carry on my legacy.”

She nearly unleashed a sharp retort, but bit her tongue to keep herself silent. The taste of blood was in her mouth.

“Very well,” she said. “Help me, Jon.”

She could not swing the axe on her own- it was too heavy for her, of course, longer than she was tall, and the blade was as large as her belly- so Jon did have to help her. Standing close at her shoulder, his hands guiding her own as they both hefted the weapon. Could feel his breath, warm on her neck.

“For for the murder of Lysa Arryn of the Vale, for conspiring against Lord Eddar Stark and collusion with House Lannister, I, Sansa of the House Stark, Lady of Winterfell and Queen in the North, sentence you to die.”

Her voice did not quiver then. It was Jon’s arm that brought the axe down, very suddenly, but she never saw it’s mark. She shut her eyes hard, heard the ugly crack of iron against bone, and then a hot spray against her cheeks and her forehead. Below her, the heavy slump of a lifeless body- of a head, hitting the ground? 

She gasped sharply and her grip on the axe loosened. It was Jon’s arms that kept her upright, and made her look more queenlike than she might have been. The axe clattered to the ground, and he turned her away before she opened her eyes again.

“Father would have wanted me to look,” she said quietly to him. Her stomach felt as gelatinous as aspic; she could feel the barley cakes she had eaten for breakfast threatening to return.

“I told Bran that once,” Jon answered, “that his father would know if he didn’t look. But your father never meant for you to see that.”

She noticed how he called him her father and not simply father, and this too made her feel ill. “Father didn’t mean for a lot of things to happen,” she told him. Could feel the blood dripping coolly down her face, and rummaged in her cloak for a handkerchief to clean herself with, and for a moment she thought she could smile the grime of King’s Landing- as it had been that day when her father died- the dusty stone baking in the sun, the reek of unwashed bodies crowded into the sept, the raw animal smell of blood when it began to dry on a hot day. For a moment she thought she really might disgorge her breakfast.

“Are you alright, my lady?”

“I think so.” She was still struggling for a handkerchief.

“Your face…” In half an instant he had retrieved a clear square of cloth from his own pocket and carefully laid his hand against her cheek, soaking the blood off her face. She stood, frozen. It was so tender- more tender than when he had touched her hair, more intimate, even than the dreams she had had, because it was real and there was more than mere courtesy behind his touch, more than the affectation of a brother who is not really a brother. With half her court there, watching them- if they were not looking after the headless body of Lord Baelish- and she felt as though he might as well have stripped her naked there on the heath, so open did she feel. He smoothed his finger, wrapped in cloth, against her cheek, and not once did he meet her eyes.

“There,” he said, when he was finished, bunching the kerchief back into his sleeve. “All better.”

All better, he had said, and now a day later they are sitting in the Great Hall by the fire, sipping mead, and he is telling her that he is going to leave.

“I have thought long about this, my lady, and it’s the only solution I can see. We need more manpower. We need fire. Winterfell stands in the path of two armies, and one of them you cannot reason with.”

“But Dorne? You’ve decided to go to Dorne?”

“They have as much cause to hate the Lannisters as we do.”

“You’re the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lady Lyanna. Don’t you think they’ll have cause to hate you for that? You’re the heir to the Iron Throne, and Elia Martell-”

“Then I’m still a bastard. Lyanna is dead, and I have no power, no proof.”

“Then why leave?”

He looks pained, sitting with his elbows propped on his knees. He says, “Because I’m no good to you here if I have the power to save us, and I don’t.”

“I’ll send someone else. I ought to go myself, if it’s down to that.”

“Certainly not.” He gives her a hard stare. “There must always be a Stark in Winterfell.”

“Then I forbid it.”

“You say I’m a prince, but you treat me like a bastard.” He actually smiles then, and it catches her so off guard she cannot think to reply to this. “Which is it then, Sansa?”

He called me Sansa. “It’s neither,” she manages. “You’re...you’re all I have left, Jon.”

“I’ll come back. And I’ll bring an army.”

“And what if you don’t?”

“I won’t rest until I do. And we’ll send word to Castle Black, to Lord Stannis, that he must send a guard south to protect you in my absence.”

“I meant what if you don’t come back?”

She sounds ridiculous and childish, her voice high with anxiety, and when he looks at her she is almost afraid he will be annoyed by her and leave. The hall is dim behind them, and the orange glow of the fire casts an eerie aspect over his features, making him look not quite himself. His eyes, glittering, met hers, and then stared into the flames once more.

“I will come back.”

“Promise me,” she says, half-feverish. “Please, Jon.”

“I promise,” he answers. “But you must make me a promise in return.”

She says, “Anything.”

“It’s six hundred miles from Winterfell to the Wall. I’ve seen how the dead walk. They’re fast. They’re like a tide. So you must promise me that if word arrives that the others have breached the wall, you will sail for Essos. And I will find you there.”

She straightens sharply, her fingernails curling into her palms. “And leave my people here to be slaughtered?” she asks, half laughing.

“It’s a precaution. If everything goes as I’ve planned it, I’ll return before then, and we’ll end the war before they even get to the wall.”

“But I thought human armies were nothing against the others.”

She knows he isn’t telling her everything the moment the words have left her mouth, and wishes she had not said them. Rather had asked him directly what he was planning. There is a darkness in his eyes then, that tells her he is hiding something, and impulsively she puts out her hand to his, curling her fingers against his coarse palm.

“You aren’t telling me something, I think.”

His fingers around her own are clammy and impassive, but still she clings to him, waiting for his response. The shadows on his hair are blue. 

“Jon…”

“Do you remember that Robert Baratheon asked Lord Stark to order the death of the Targaryen girl?” he asks, quietly.

She had forgotten until that moment, and then the whole realization of everything settles on her breast so heavily she actually exhales.

“Rhaegar’s sister, then. And your aunt.”

“Yes.”

“And you think you can ask her to help us defend against the others.”

He lowers his head, almost in shame, his fingers twitching around her own.

“Then why go to Dorne? Why not go to her?”

“I have no proof of who I am. She’s...she’s a last resort.”

There is nothing she can say to this, to the hopelessness in his voice. Jon Snow has always been grim- grim is the very word for him, for the downward set of his mouth and his hard, heavy brows- but the grimness has turned empty and hard. She has seen its approach for week and denied it, this hardness, but it is here now, in his eyes and his mouth. 

When she moves to withdraw her hand, his fingers tighten suddenly around hers and keep her hand in his.

“Sansa…”

“Come home soon, Jon. Please.”

They sit like this for what seems a long time, her fingers laid against his palm, his thumb on her knuckles. The light of a new moon streams through the high leaded windows of the hall, cold as frost and silver-blue. 

“I’ll send a raven to Stannis Baratheon in the morning,” she murmurs.

“Good.”

“When will you leave?”

“Soon. Tomorrow or the day after. Howland Reed is coming with me. But he will leave his men here.”

“I wish you had told me sooner.”

“I wanted to be sure you would have no further trouble from Lord Baelish. I couldn’t…” He exhales slowly. “I couldn’t leave you and not know that you were safe.”

“I am safe.” With you, I am safe. I have been safe since you came home. She fears what will happen if he leaves her.

He shakes his head, his half-smile looming in the light. “You remind me of Lady Catelyn,” he tells her. “You hide your feelings underneath this...this gentleness.”

“I look like her do.”

“Yes. Your hair.”

She remembers the way he touched the crown of her head that day in her bedchamber and withholds a shiver.

“The wildlings call it kissed by fire. It means you’re lucky.”

And that makes her laugh, and withdraw her hand to cover her laughing mouth and the smile that blooms on her face. 

“I don’t think we’re very lucky,” she says, still laughing. “Look at everything that’s happened.”

Later, in her own bed, she realizes it is the first time she can remember laughing since she was only a girl.

Two mornings later, Jon Snow is mounted on his shaggy brown mare and wrapped in furs, a sword at his hip and daggers in his boot. Howland Reed, wrapped in greely-green fur and riding a fierce-eyed pony, has already left the yard at a brisk trot, having bade her goodbye the evening before. It is early yet, and there is hardly anyone in the yard but the two of him; he had told her simply to sleep, for it would be easier, but she had woken early to dress herself and meet him in the stables. She had never gone to the stables as a girl, thinking it unsuitable for a young lady, but of course it doesn't matter now. 

She watches him saddling his horse in the quiet gloom, his breath and the breath of the mare glowing whitish in the chill; and she walked with him to the yard, holding the horse's reins as he mounted, and then laying gloved her hand on his knee. 

"Remember your promise," she tells him. 

He settles in the saddle, gathering the reins in his hands, and looks down at her. His cloak sweeps in heavy folds from his shoulder, and the heavy fur collar makes him look noble. "I remember," he tells her. 

She almost tells him she loves him then. Almost, but the words fall dead in her throat. 

He looks into her face for a moment, as grim and calm and emotionless as ever, and then wheels his horse towards the gates and canters away from her. She waits, alone. They had not even said goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am going to try my very hardest to finish this fic!!! I promise!!! please kick my ass if I don't. (you can do said-asskicking at the twitter account peafiower, which is my asoiaf rant account. come on over. kick my butt.).
> 
> also! i love stannis baratheon very much, hence why he is alive in this (hopefully this doesn't like...contradict anything else i've said). i will explain why davos is in winterfell and not with stannis in the next chapter (this is where you can kick my butt to get me to write it if i don't update soon).
> 
> also parts of this are supposed to be italicized as per grrm's style but for some reason when i copy off google docs it makes the whole chapter into a giant monster paragraph of rage when i try to italicize. whoops.


	9. Fire and Snow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sansa makes a discovery. stannis baratheon makes an offer.

“My lady.”

She is on the parapets of Winterfell, looking north. A fortnight has passed since Jon Snow left her, but she does not think of that. Or rather she tells herself she will not, and concentrates her energy on this. So she does not hear Ser Davos mount the staircase and hurry along the frost-covered stone until he spoke, and then she flinches to turns to him.

“Ser.”

“My lady, there’s been a raven.” In his gloved, foreshortened fingers he clutches a tiny parchment, still curled into a tight roll, and proffers to her. “From the Wall.”

Lord Stannis. She takes the parchet and breaks the red seal that holds it closed- the imprint of a flaming heart and a stag’s head- and unfurls the paper. The message is short and terse, but written in Stannis’ own hand, and he has signed the end himself: Stannis of House Baratheon, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms.

“He is coming to Winterfell himself,” she says, rolling the parchment again and tucking into the safety of her sleeve. “With a small contingent of his men, as I asked, and two guests. Ser Davos, will you order the maester to begin preparations for their arrival?”

“Of course, my lady.” But he doesn’t leave immediately, but lingers anxiously, toying with the little pouch of fingerbones he wears around his neck.

“Is something the matter, ser?”

“Oh...it isn’t my place, m’lady, but I only wondered if…”

“If what?” She smiles at him.

“I only wondered if he made mention of his daughter, the Lady Shireen.”

“Not by name. But perhaps she is one of the guests.”

“I certainly hope so, my lady- she’s a fine girl, very fine. You’d like her.”

Sansa thinks of Jeyne Poole, her old girl-friend from childhood, who disappeared from King’s Landing during the chaos after Father’s death. How she wept in their shared chamber, when the slaughter first happened, her sobs so noisy and outrageous Sansa herself had not felt the need to weep at all. She hasn’t hand a friend of her own since then, a friend who was not employed to her, or who would send whispers back to someone else. That is why, she thinks, I do not have friends. My lady mother had no friends, and Cersei Lannister had no friends; I am a queen, as they were, and I shall have no friends. Friends are only things to weep over, someday, when they leave you.

What she hasn’t told him is the reason Lord Stannis himself is coming south- “to discuss the matter of your sovereignty” was what he had written- and she feels chill in her heart at this. The last thing they need is to make an enemy of Lord Stannis. She has never met him, but the rumours paint a fearsome portrait of the last Baratheon- an unfeeling, exacting, vengeful man with cold heart and an evil red priestess. She whispers the old words to herself. _I must be as strong as my lady mother. She would never flinch, not even for Lord Stannis._

His host and he himself arrive four days after his raven. The contingent he brings with him is not large, but the sight of it, at least, is formidable, appearing like a spectre from a hard, driving snow late in the evening. The flaming heart of his house flutters on a dozen banners, illuminated thinly by weak torchlight. She can hear the rattle of mail even over the wind, waiting for them at the gate. Ser Davos and Tormund are beside her, wrapped in furs and bearing lanterns to guide the way.

She cannot pick out Lord Stannis from his men until they are in the yard and the gate is shut behind them; then one of the men slides from his horse and removes his helm, revealing a gruff-faced men with a beard and sharp blue eyes.

“Lord Stannis,” she hears Ser Davos say, and he drops to his knee beside her, head bowed in respect.

“Rise, Ser Davos.” His voice is hard as iron and sounds as unyielding, the gesture of his hand sharp and short. He looks at her and does not bow. “Lady Stark.”

She had not planned to bow to him, but now that he is before her she is suddenly unsure whether she should stay standing or bow as low as Ser Davos. Instead she lowers her head demurely, respectfully.

“Lord Stannis, I welcome you and your men to Winterfell. I hope your journey has not been difficult.”

“It was sufficiently bearable.”

She shrugs off his brusqueness and smiles at him. “I’ve a meal laid for you and your men in the great hall, and your bed-chambers are ready for whenever you wish to rest. Won’t you come in?”

“That would be fine.” He turned to shout a few times to his men, and a small figure slides down from a grey horse, arms wrapped tight around themselves as they shiver with cold.

“This is my daughter, Lady Shireen. I expect she would rather go straight to bed.”

“But of course. Welcome, Lady Shireen.”

The smaller girl makes no answer, but only bobs her head. Sansa leads them across the yard to the great hall. The doors are pushed open to reveal a table laid for half a hundred, a fire roaring in the hearth, warm furs and wool blankets, serving girls with mulled wine and malt beer, and a raised table of honour for Stannis Baratheon to dine alongside her. The snow in their cloak makes the cloth stiff and frozen, and a trail of water marks the path they take to the table. Ser Davos offers to show Lady Shireen to her chambers himself, and with a hot cup of wine in her hand they leave the hall, leaving Sansa alone with Lord Stannis.

He looks no kinder in warmer quarters, though he is gracious in the same cold way. He declines both wine and beer, preferring water. When their plates are filled and he is seated in her usual place at the head of the table- out of respect, so as not to offend him- he says, “There are several urgent matters that are in need of discussion, and I have not planned to stay long.”

“You may stay as long as you desire, Lord Stannis.”

“My place is at the wall, with my men. It was against my inclination to come here myself, but I was advised it would be imprudent not to. There are some who say I ought to depose you immediately, and that you have committed grave treason against the true king by installing yourself as queen.”

It was what she had feared, but she hadn’t imagined it would come up so quickly. Her heart almost fails her, but she says, “I hope a more peaceable agreement can be reached, Lord Stannis. It was not my intention to offend, but only to reclaim what was rightfully my family’s.”

“And what is that? Winterfell, or the north?”

“We are northerners, my lord. Winterfell is the house that is my home, but the north is my home too,” she says carefully.

“That is what the usurper Robb Stark said as well. But since I have learned that there are worse things than usurpers in this land. That was why I sent Ser Davos with your bastard brother to reclaim Winterfell. I need the northern lords to fight the threat beyond the Wall.”

“Ser Davos’ presence has been much appreciated…”

He waves his hand dismissively. “There is no time for niceties, Lady Stark. There will come a time when we will meet and it will not be friendly. The seven kingdoms is mine by rights-”

“And the north is mine. If the Iron Throne is yours because of the Baratheon conquest, then the north is mine because of Robb’s conquest. I may be a woman, Lord Stannis, but I am not stupid nor weak.”

He looks at her briefly over the edge of his water cup before taking a long, nervous drink. “No, I don’t believe you are. I heard that you executed Littlefinger Baelish for treason not a month ago.”

“He murdered my aunt.”

Lord Stannis frowned. “So I have heard. I do not take you for a fool, Lady Stark. Your brother was a fool, but I do not think you are.”

She bristles at how he speaks of Robb, digging her fingernails into the tender flesh of her palm to keep herself from retorting.

“Your father was beheaded for acknowledging me as lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and as I do not forget my enemies, I do not forget those who support me. So by his memory and his alone, I have advised to put forth the offer of a truce.”

“A truce?”

“Yes. At the wall, I have your brother, Bran Stark…”

He might well have punched her in the belly; the blow would have been less of a shock, but as it is she nearly doubles over at the table. Her fingernails pinch her skin. _Bran alive_. It is a lie. It must be. But Theon said they were not dead- he said it when they last saw each other, before he went away to the Iron Islands.

She says, “Lord Stannis, I believe I have misheard you.”

“About your brother? No, you have not. My men discovered him half a league from the wall with some...girl called Meera Reed.”

“The daughter of Howland Reed.” She feels sick and dizzy, the meat pie she has eaten roiling in her belly.

“The very same. I did not believe his identity myself but he...he possess strange abilities. The wildlings call him a seer. My closest advisor, Melisandre of Asshai, has assured me he is genuine- she is the same.”

It sounds like one of the stories Old Nan used to tell her, but she is past disbelief; her bastard brother is a Targaryen prince who returned from the dead, dragons fly again over Westeros, and an army of the dead marches for the Wall.

“If you’ve any doubt of his authenticity, I have a letter, in his own hand, for you.”

From his breast pocket he withdraws a tiny rolled scroll and hands it to her. Trembling, she breaks the blue seal and unfurls it on the table, squinting to read the tiny lettering in the firelight. Yet it is his hand- the nervous scribble of a boy who would rather be doing something else- and it is signed by him. From Bran of House Stark to my sister Sansa. Tears, unbidden, fill her eyes but do not fall. She cannot cry in front of Stannis Baratheon- she cannot show her weakness. She breathes shallowly, bullying herself to be calm.

He doesn’t seem to notice. “I have decided to keep him with me as a ward at the Wall, until such a time as the threat of the others is extinguished and my place as king of this realm is secure. Then we shall discuss the matter of your sovereignty. With your brother in my care, I trust you will not take up arms against me.”

“Certainly not,” she manages.

“As a token of my sincerity, I ask that you, in turn, foster my daughter, Shireen Baratheon, until the great war is won. I believe she is a year younger than yourself. So there will be no fear of mistreatment from either party.”

“I would have liked to see my brother.”

“Soon enough,” he grunts. “Do you accept the terms?”

“I do, my lord.”

“Very well. I will leave Ser Davos here to act as my representative in your court. Should you desire to send one of your own with me to the Wall, I ensure they are looked after and their concerns addressed on your behalf.”

She would have sent Jon, but Jon is not here, and neither is Howland Reed- who might have gone, and would have liked to see his daughter; and she would have liked to see Bran, and she would have liked Jon to be there to share in her joy that he lives. For a moment she thinks she will send a raven to him, to tell him of Bran and ask him to return home, to fill the raw ache in her heart where he usually is, and then she remembers she has no idea where he is this frigid night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> admittedly I am rushing this fic a bit but hopefully that just keeps the action running nicely, because this has been put up as a jonsa fic after all and a jonsa fic it will stay (that does not, however, mean i am opposed to bringing back stannis. because i love him and i miss him and hopefully you feel the same).
> 
> i do love getting comments, advice, criticism- ANYTHING- so please do no hesitate to share ur thoughts with me, i love anything anyone has to say.
> 
> will probably have a corresponding jon drabble under the king of disaster fic to show what he's up to while sansa goes head to head with stannis baratheon....


End file.
